Wrestling Could Set The Tone For Other Good Sports

May 29, 1986|By Michael McLeod of the Sentinel Staff

The next time you are reading a sports story -- for those of you who are not seasoned sports fans, this generally means any story that mentions recruiting violations, cocaine or rioting fans -- take heart.

Despite all the corruption and confusion in professional athletics today, one sport has remained untouched by the turmoil -- professional wrestling.

Professional wrestling is the only sport in which the players themselves are still meaner than the fans. While other sports are struggling to maintain their reputations, wrestling has the tremendous advantage of never having had one to worry about in the first place.

Wrestling, as it is practiced in the carny-like atmosphere of the World Wrestling Federation, is based on the old American tradition that if you act crazy enough, nobody will mess around with you.

This tradition has enabled wrestling to sidestep a number of the problems that have victimized other sports. You may have noticed, for example, that there have been no major scandals concerning wrestlers and drugs. This is because even the most hardened investigators are hesitant to ask a man whose trademarks are a length of chain and a face like Linda Blair in The Exorcist to run on down to the lab for a urinalysis.

Professional wrestling has also solved the problem of wild and unruly fans. Sociologists see fan violence as a signal that our society is breaking down. Actually it is a simple matter of supply and demand: If the players provide enough violence and aggression, the fans won't feel obligated to add any of their own.

These are just a few of the lessons that the less sophisticated sports in America could learn from professional wrestling. Here are a few others.

-- Always get rid of the umpire early in the game. A major mistake made by most organized sports is an inordinate preoccupation with what the umpires and referees have to say. But umpires and referees are actually a hindrance to the action. Referees for the World Wrestling Federation know this, which is why they always seem to disappear or get thrown out of the ring halfway through the match, just about the time the wrestlers begin throwing major appliances at each other.

-- Rules? There are no rules. Who needs rules?

Ignoring the rules simplifies a sport tremendously and allows for much more interesting action. Not even the good guys abide by the rules in a wrestling match. Ignoring the rules makes it much easier for the fans to identify with the game be- cause it more closely resembles scenes they remember from real life, such as the freeway on the way into work.

-- The quickest route to success is to have something very wrong with either your personality or your pituitary gland. Many professional sports expect all their players to look and act alike. But professional wrestling encourages its athletes and ringside attendants to be either dwarfs or giants or, failing that, to develop a pathological personality.

Most sports eventually squeeze out the truly obnoxious personalities like Billy Martin or John McEnroe. But professional wrestling encourages brash self-expression instead of repressing it. In fact, unless you dress like the San Diego Chicken and talk like Joan Rivers your career possibilities are extremely limited.

These philosophies could easily be applied to any one of the other major sports. Baseball, which has a reputation as being perhaps the most boring American sport, could try it first. They should start planning for next season right now. Cyndi Lauper could throw out the first pitch.